NewsBusters, a wing of the conservative Media Research Center, has a provocative headline today: “Nets Dedicate 28X More Coverage to Trump Tweet than Kate’s Law Passing House.”
The story goes on to detail the fact that TV networks spent much, much more time talking about President Trump’s Twitter attacks on MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on Thursday than they did about a law that targets sanctuary cities and makes good on a major Trump campaign promise.
Wrote Nicholas Fondacaro:
“Collectively, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS and NBC) dedicated a total of 12 minutes and 14 seconds to Trump’s attack against the MSNBC personality. ABC’s “World News Tonight” gave the tweet three minutes 45 seconds, “CBS Evening News” a whopping five minutes 29 seconds over two different segments, and “NBC Nightly News” set aside three minutes. All of them led their evening news program with Trump’s tweets…
…It’s a shame that the Big Three Networks chose to ignore or downplay the rare showing of bipartisanship in a time of deep division. And it’s not like they didn’t have the time to report it, they instead just chose to cover silly things. ABC spend two news briefs reporting on a high-speed car chase and an impromptu wedding at a baseball game. CBS ended their program with a long report about a house for sale that was bisected by the US/Canada border.”
Shame!
Here’s the thing: The only reason that the networks dedicated so much coverage to the Trump tweets is because it was the President of the United States cyberbullying a female journalist based on her looks.
That’s a BIG story. Particularly when First Lady Melania Trump has spoken about the dangers of cyberbullying and how she wants to work to stamp it out during her time in the White House. And when it’s part of a pattern of inappropriate and sexist comments over a period of years by Donald Trump.
If Trump wanted a bigger focus on Kate’s Law, know what he could have done? NOT TWEETED AN ATTACK ON MIKA BRZEZINSKI’S LOOKS.
That would not have been terribly difficult. And it would have ensured that the passage of sanctuary city legislation would get more attention — likely splitting it with the ongoing Senate machinations over health care legislation.
Blaming the media for covering the Trump tweets totally misses the point. Donald Trump, as he so often does, did this to himself. He is the one who sent the tweets about Brzezinski. He’s the one who sent White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders out to defend them. He’s the one who started all of this.
What we’ve learned in Trump’s relatively brief time in the White House is that his Twitter feed represents the truest expression of what he cares about in any given hour or day. His White House may issue formal statements or declare this week or that week “infrastructure week” or “energy week” (that’s this week!). But that stuff is secondary to the tweets of Trump.
His Twitter feed is the best window we have into his psyche. So, when he tweets, we pay attention. As we should. (The White House has even said that Trump’s tweets amount to official White House statements.)
Donald Trump is supposedly a savvy media consumer and participant. He must know then how much his tweets steer the national media coverage. And so, he could, theoretically, avoid tweeting things like he did Thursday about a cable TV host and get a lot more coverage about the topics his White House wants to talk about.
Why doesn’t he? He can’t help himself. And that’s Donald Trump’s problem, not the media’s.